Carp Fishing - Is It Really Spring?

After getting myself back on track and banking a couple of small carp last week I was keen to head back to the new Shropshire mere I’ve been looking at recently. I headed off mid morning on Saturday and after an hours drive I pulled up at the lake to find it very busy. I wasn’t happy, with limited time and no room to move and go looking for the carp due to bivvy anglers I was stuck. I had no choice but to turn the car around and go to another lake.

Luckily for me I have a decent list of other waters to choose from and it’s just a case of selecting a carp water from the list of favourites on my sat nav and I’m off. When you're short session carping you sometimes have to make snap decisions and mine was to head back to the same lake I caught from last week. I didn’t feel like making a lot of effort this week and I knew the peg I caught from last week would have a few carp present.

Unfortunately, the peg was occupied with a bivvy this time so there was no chance of the angler going home early and leaving me with a chance to catch something. I stood for half an hour surveying the water but nothing showed. Half an hour was enough for me, it was really cold due to a biting easterly wind that was blowing and I couldn’t help but think that today was going to be a struggle.
Eventually I dropped into a peg off the back of the wind. I was in amongst a lot of other anglers but being in an end peg at least I had a bit of water to myself.

I decided to place both of my rigs at range in an area I’d done well from on previous visits. Again I stuck with the kevin nash boilie pellets I’d caught on last week. In fact my tactics were exactly the same as last week, single pva mesh bags of mixed trout pellets with a pop up boilie pellet over the top.

My mixed pellets and a couple of pva mesh bags made up ready


Once the rods were out I sat back to watch the water for signs of carp. Despite having the wind behind me I was still cold, so much so that I was uncomfortable and I ended up spending most of the session walking up and down to keep myself warm, not exactly the right weather for late April!.
I kept an eye out for moving carp but I didn’t actually see anything. This particular carp water holds a very good head of carp and to see nothing at all is very unusual. Not only did nothing show but nobody caught either, except the angler who happened to have his bivvy in the peg I’d wanted, he managed a fish late afternoon. Once again I knew where I needed to fish and I was again foiled by an angler rather than the carp themselves. This is a frequent occurrence on our busy north west club waters and I’ve sort of learned to accept it, if you don’t or can’t get the right swim then you have to sit and watch someone else catch!.

My rig with a pva mesh bag/pop up boilie pellet ready to cast


With time moving on I tried moving my baits around different areas of the swim in the hope of dropping on some fish but it was all in vain. I packed up biteless at 8pm and headed home. Since I started my spring carp fishing I’ve been constantly foiled by other anglers and I’m having difficulty getting onto fish as our lakes seem to be under very heavy angling pressure at the moment. As I drove home, I couldn’t help but think about the crappy weather, it would help me considerably if the carp where more mobile and cruising round in the sunshine and I hope the temperatures start rising soon. I also considered June 16th and the start of the river season, it would be nice to get away from the angling circus that seems to dominate our north west carp waters and I think I will be resuming my river carping diary in a few months time!.

Tight Lines
Mark.